Cohen’s exit, however, was open-ended, meaning that she wasn’t killed off of the series and the door was left open for her return. In fact, showrunner Angela Kang is moving ahead with season 10 of the series under the assumption that Cohan will return, telling Comicbook.com, “We will hopefully come back to Maggie’s story in Season 10. Lauren and I have been texting about some things, and we’re hopefully gonna schedule a conversation, but Georgie’s group is definitely out there in world doing some stuff, and I have some notion of what they’re up to.”

Lauren Cohan’s return, however, may have hit a snag, although a snag that Lauren Cohen will obviously appreciate. When contract negotiations between Lauren Cohan and AMC broke down last year, Cohen decided to take offers to do other series and eventually landed the co-lead in the action-comedy Whiskey Cavalier along with Scott Foley (Felicity, Scandal). Given the failure rate of freshman series — about 60 percent — the prospects for Cohan’s return seemed a better bet than not. If Cavalier stumbles and is cancelled, Cohan will be free to return to The Walking Dead on a full-time basis.